Academic quizzes or contests have been used for many years, both as entertainment and as teaching aids. Quiz contests help to reinforce factual knowledge and recall of students or contestants and at the same time can be a fun activity. The format of most academic quizzes and contests is fairly universal. In general, a judge or moderator asks a question which a plurality of contestants attempt to answer. The first player who successfully answers the question is generally awarded points of some kind, and the player who has the most points at the end of the competition wins. Therefore, when a contestant wishes to attempt to answer the question, the contestant signals the moderator in some fashion, and the moderator must determine who signaled first.
The first contestant to signal has the first chance to answer the question. The contestants may compete against each other individually, or may be in teams. In team competition, normally only one contestant per team may attempt to answer a question, before the other team or teams may try. There may also be a limited time in which a question may be answered.
To orderly administer a quiz or game of this type, the moderator must be able to determine which contestant first signaled that he or she wanted to attempt to answer the question. If a contestant answered the question incorrectly, the moderator must determine which contestant signaled second, etc. In the past, the moderator had to read the questions again and determine which of the remaining teams/individuals signaled first.
For example, Curt U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,335, and the references cited therein, disclose various academic quiz controllers. Curt, which is believed to be the most sophisticated of the prior art, discloses a computerized academic quiz controller with a master console and a plurality of contestant modules interconnected by telephone cables and modular telephone connectors. The modules are grouped into teams, illustratively two teams of four contestants each. In Curt, there are several modes of operation, including a quiz or "toss-up" mode. In this mode, after one contestant on one team signals that he or she wishes to answer a question, all of the other teams are "locked-out," that is, the modules on the other team are rendered inoperative. If the first contestant answers the question incorrectly there is no means to determine which, if any, other contestant was second, third, etc. Furthermore, there does not appear to be any way to increase the number of teams or, conversely, utilize the invention of Curt in individual play.
Therefore, it is a general object of the invention to provide a quiz controller which overcomes the limitations of the prior art.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a quiz controller that is easily modified for variations in the rules of play.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a quiz controller that can be varied from individual play to teams of varying sizes.